From the creators of Asphalt 4: ELite Racing and Real Soccer 2009 comes Guitar Rock Tour. The $9.99 game is promising “the only game on the iPhone where you play guitar & drums like a rock god”. Features include:

• 2 instruments to play: Guitar & drums.
• Only rhythm game with console-type 3D graphics & animations.
• Famous rock songs: Beat It, In the Shadow, Girlfriend, Message in a Bottle, Rock You like a Hurricane, Smoke on the Water, and more!
• Exclusive Rock Star career mode takes you from your garage to the biggest stadiums!

Great news iPhone and iPod Touch users! IUGO Mobile Entertainment has released their second version of Toy Bot Diaries! 

“Your favorite robot is BACK! Join Toy Bot in his latest and greatest adventure: Toy Bot Diaries Entry 2. Toy Bot begins where he left off, climbing out of the dingy sewers and into a whole new world of challenges in the sky. Entry 2 gives you more levels, more content, more graphics and maximum fun! See why Toy Bot has been called one of the best games exclusive to the iPhone. If you liked Entry 1, you’ll LOVE Toy Bot Diaries Entry 2!”

You can purchase Toy Bot Diaries 2 in the App Store for a measly price of $3.99, and I promise you won’t be disappointed!

We’re finally starting to see a trickle of online multiplayer gaming coming to the iPhone. A couple of new updates are starting to offer this feature to some popular games. Tap Tap Revenge The 1.5 update to this free rhythm game offers online play against friends and those you live near you. Multiple people play the same song at the same time and are ranked based on performance. Nothing motivates you more than head-to-head competition. App Store Link: Tap Tap Revenge, Free Raging Thunder This update is not yet available, but a Polarbit representative posted details about the pending update. Version 1.0.3 of Raging Thunder will contain online, real-time, internet multi-player racing.

We’ve received *a lot* of e-mail from gamers about Raging Thunder - the majority of it very positive. The one feature that people seem to have missed is online multiplayer. Nice guys that we are, we’ve taken these words to heart and included it in the latest update at no extra cost. Remember though that this first release is a public beta. There might be issues still in there, and we’d really appreciate if you report these to beta@polarbit.com

In order for the online multi-player to succeed, users are asked to download and setup individual servers for people to play on.

Remember: the more people that host servers, the more servers there are for people to choose from, and the more people will hang around looking for someone to play against! For this thing to work, it kinda hinges on you guys actually getting some servers up out there around the globe. It would be really cool to see a fat server list once the game goes live in a few days. We’d also recommend you to include the name of your country or something in your server name – instructions to configure are enclosed with the server package.

Raging Thunder happens to be on sale now at only $3.99 (from $7.99). Certainly, online multiplayer could take it to the next level. App Store Link: Raging Thunder, $3.99

Apple is continuing to recognize the gaming potential of the iPhone and iPod Touch and seems to be increasingly positioning it as a mobile gaming alternative. Apple’s Vice President of Hardware Product Marketing Greg Joswiak was recently interviewed by Stuff.tv and suggested that there is a lot of potential for iPhone and iPod Touch gaming:

I think you’re going to see a wide variety (of games on the App Store). And they range all the way from casual to big time action games. This is where we are, less than four months into it. Squint your eyes and imagine where we will be in six months time, or a year. The graphics capablity is greater than the DS, we have multitouch, the screen is larger and there’s an accelerometer. And we have the App Store. I think it’s the future of gaming.

Even more significantly, a Wall Street Journal article quotes Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs about the mobile gaming market:

“I think the iPhone and iPod touch may emerge as really viable devices in the mobile games market this holiday season,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and co-founder, in an interview.

The WSJ article reports that over a quarter of the App Store’s 200 million apps distributed were games. A few notable iPhone developers are quoted, but the most revealing quote comes from id Software’s John Carmack who reports that they are working on two iPhone games at this time. Carmack had previously revealed in July that they were working on one exclusive title for the iPhone, but little has since been heard about the project. id Software is the developer who has been responsible for the Doom and Quake franchises.

Bootant, who brought us BiiBall, CubeRise and others made a post on TouchArcade pointing out a preview video of their upcoming iPhone application, BiiPlane, an airplane flying game that’s currently under development. You can view the video below, obviously.

 

Pocketgamer.co.uk pointed out the video for this nice looking title which is available on YouTube.

Even though details are scarce right now, CobraMobile’s Low Grav Racer game looks like it’s going to be a huge it when it is released on the App Store!

 

   

Rocking Pocket Games has released a video of their upcoming iPhone / iPod Touch game, iFishing. The game looks very promising from the video shown below.

  A little info on the game:

1) There is no time limit when you’re not in a tournament. You can choose any of the lakes you’ve unlocked.

2) In tournament mode you can keep 3 fish in your live well. If you have 3 fish already it will automatically throw out the smallest one. When time is up or you decide to quit it will show the results. If you’re in the top 3 you’ll win between $5000 and $20,000.

3) You can choose different lures (jig, shallow diver, deep diver, topwater, etc) but not line or rods at this point. 

4) To reel in there is a slider along the bottom. You just hold your finger in this area to reel. The farther to the right the faster you reel. You don’t have to move in a circle like the other fishing games since it isn’t important to gameplay. 

You have to keep the fish on the screen and within a certain distance from the boat or it will get away. If the line tension is too loose it will get away. If it is too high you’ll snap the line. You can raise and lower the rod to add or remove a little bit of line tension.

You can also use a jigging motion to raise the depth of the lure. Fish are more likely to strike when the lure is falling.

As for the lake map, every square on the map has a different probability of catching the fish you’re after. For example smallmouth and walleye are likely to hang around rocks, while largemouth can be found in lilypads and weeds. Every time you have a strike the probability of catching another fish is reduced. For fish that school the probability is decreased less than a big predator like a musky. If the probability is below 25% your fishing guide will tell you the place is fished out and you should move to another spot.
This makes it necessary to keep moving around the lake rather than parking in one spot all day.

The background images while fishing reflect where you are on the map, so if you’re out in the open or right next to the dock you’ll be able to see that.

The game has bluegill, perch, black crappie, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, walleye, and musky.

  Here is a video of the gameplay:

 

iFishing is scheduled to be finished by the end of October, so we’ll probably be seeing it around the beginning of November!

Polarbit’s Raging Thunder game is on a sale for 50% off of its original $7.99 price! Meaning it is available in the App Store for $3.99, and it’s definitely worth it.

EA’s Spore Origins iPhone / iPod Touch game is now on sale for $7.99, a $2.00 difference from its previous price of $9.99.

“Spore Origins is certainly one of the most engaging games available for the iPhone. Using the Creature Creator to evolve your organism–to better equip it to eat and not be eaten in the dangerous game world–and to watch those changes work to advantage is highly satisfying.”

  Looks like now is the time to pick up this title if you’ve been waiting for a price drop!

Freeverse has just released their new iPhone / iPod Touch game: Plank. We’ll be sure to have a review and/or video up of it soon!

 

But if you can’t wait for our review, you can: download it here.